My Right Foot is Done for the Day and a Truck can Ride a Robot Dinosaur

The mediocre burrito I had for lunch.

I woke up today around my preferred time being that of 7:00 AM and took all the time in the world performing my normal morning activities. After I returned to my dorm after showering and changing, my roommate woke up and asked me if today is a half-day for our Freedom and Justice class. I told him that we have a noon dismissal today and he reacted by falling back asleep. I ate a small breakfast consisting of pork sausages and breakfast potatoes and even a cup of Joe. I am trying to integrate coffee into my semi-regular diet (if that makes sense) so that I can become accustomed to it's taste, so far I can only bear coffee when milk is added.

The lecture today consisted of the remaining portion of The Republic that we didn't go over yesterday. Plato always had some very odd ideas about how to build a society from the bottom up and reading his work never ceases to fascinate me. The lecture today included the allegory of the cave explanation, what the differences between the real philosophers and the fake philosophers is, the contradictions in the text and more. The allegory of the cave explanation was something I found to be extremely interesting. Basically in the cave, there are prisoners there that have lived their entire lives there. The only thing they see are the shadows dancing on the wall, some of them will be smart enough and leave the group (future guardians), climb the barrier leading to the entrance of the cave (the rigorous process that guardian training involves), find the fire and puppeteers, then see the light at the end of the cave and then walk into the outside world and be exposed to real world (knowledge). I actually didn't give the full explanation because if I did, then it would probably be half of my blog and most people would find it boring.

Back entrance of the Cornell Store.

Considering how to distinguish the real philosophers from the essential followers, one must test them by how they perceive beauty. In Plato's world, beauty is something that is one thing and not many things. It can be described as capturing the essence of an object or living organism, not looking at many things at once. Explaining this concept is something that is definitely not easy and is exactly the reason why Professor Kramnick spent about 20 minutes dedicated to it.

The next thing, being our discussion, wasn't as long as the previous ones but we still covered a great deal of today's lecture. Our TA Vijay went over the main focuses of the lecture mentioned in the previous lectures. Not only that, but he went over Plato's "line" and then correlated to the allegory of the cave. The "line" is perhaps just as difficult to explain as how to distinguish real philosophers from fake ones is, but certainly not as lengthy as explaining the allegory of the cave is--and do to that reason I will not attempt to explain it on this blog. After our discussion class, we were all given a diagram of the allegory and our next writing assignment which is due on Monday. Not only that, but we also have to start and finish the assigned John Locke readings.

Us posing in front of the back entrance of the Cornell Store.

A dilemma that came up was that our cohort was tired of eating at Trillium because of its limited options but in the end we all decided to eat at Trillium because College Town was too long of a walk and we didn't really attempt to locate our other options. At Trillium, I didn't know what to get and I let Victoria and Gabby from my F & J class recommend me to the caesar chicken burrito--which they claimed was the "bomb." It was alright but nothing comparable to the burritos I get from local restaurants back home. I think I might as well stick to the Chinese food line or get a salad next time.

Right after that, while Natalie and I were walking back to our dorms I noticed that there was a relatively small pain on my foot that I didn't really pay much attention too (I would later regret neglecting this pain). I fell asleep after getting to my dorm and then had to quickly travel to the bookstore (again not paying attention to the growing pain in my foot, thinking that it was going to pass) and by the time I got there everyone was picking out their own sweaters. I quickly found a few Nike and Under-Armour sweaters and decided on choosing a  Nike one because I don't have any Nike brand college apparel. There were so many options to choose from the bottom and top floors and I will be spending time looking for souvenirs one of these upcoming days. I thank the ILC for apart from supplying us with all necessities we require on the trip, also buying us a complimentary sweater each. 

All different views of the Ithaca Mall.

We all took a picture outside in the 80 degree Fahrenheit humidity (we looked completely absurd) and then all went back to our dorms. Then again, the pain in my foot was growing at a dramatic rate I had to see what was up with it by the time I returned to my dorm. As we were walking back, Katelyn was suggesting that we should all swim at the Helen Newman swimming pool, I decided that I would go for something that would burn more calories in less time so I declined and planned on going jogging. Well, that didn't turn out to be the case. When I got to my dorm I took off my shoes and socks and there was a gigantic blister on my smallest right toe and with my manly-conscience, associable to that of a Neanderthal, I resorted to popping it. My foot felt so horrible that I walked with a sort of jump for the next 4 hours. It certainly wasn't the first time this has happened and it certainly won't be the last.

The Regal Cinema.

Towards the end of the day at around 7:00 PM my cohort and I went to the Ithaca Mall and we gazed upon the empty shops, with a population of less than 4 people per 100 square feet. We eventually watched the newest Transformers movie, Transformers: Age of Extinction which was full of a bunch of action, but took up FAR TOO MUCH TIME. It took up so much time, that we all feared that we wouldn't get back to our housing facilities on time before night-check. When we got back, there was in reality nothing to be feared with lots of students still wandering the campus with friends. After all there were many events happening at school today after 7:00 PM, including the star-gazing event at the local Fuertes Observatory (I had to respectfully decline this earlier)--which I heard had over a 100 attendees.

Latter part of my title proven.

From my experience so far, I've realized that Cornell really has something for everyone. Whether it be in the Cornell store or events to go to--despite everyone saying that Cornell is in the middle of nowhere. In reality, its what the students themselves make out of it and what experience they want to have. The weather isn't even that bad considering how the humidity is comparable to Hercules. I wonder what awaits me for tomorrow.